Barred

I'm delighted to read that the railway arches under the line that crosses Wood Lane W12 just next to Television Centre are to be opened up for new businesses.

In the dark days of 1997, when Radio 5 Live staff had been moved into the "News Centre" at the front of TVC, a group of us would spend rare downtime plotting the opening of a wine bar in one of those arches. It seemed a no-brainer - wine on sale or return, the odd bottle of posh lager, a limited menu of bread, cheese and pate (perhaps with the addition of lettuce fronds), served by attractive language students.  All we needed was a sponsor to take some risk - and install toilets. A back door would also have been helpful, so that entrants could not be spotted from top floor management offices.

In those days, many BBC managers submitted to the Myers-Briggs/Belbin Team analysis malarkey. We had no completer/finisher in our gang, and the wine bar never happened.